From Zelensky to Deep State: Who Could Try to Sabotage Putin-Trump Ukraine Peace Push?

Has the most to lose, facing not only the cutoff of easy-to-embezzle Western aid, but potential assassination by the neo-Nazi thugs helping keep his regime afloat.

Zelensky could sabotage peace by: a) rejecting Trump’s orders b) making a deal for support from other NATO powers c) staging a false flag provocation to justify keeping the conflict going, something already done successfully in the spring of 2022 to bolster Western support.

Arguably more heavily invested in the Ukraine project than the US, and the main beneficiaries of the 2014 Maidan coup, EU countries and the UK could take over US commitments. This would cost Europe $3.1 trln over 10 years, per a new assessment by Bloomberg Economics.

Without Congressional support, Trump won’t be able to lift Russia sanctions, nor fully halt money and arms being sent to Ukraine.

Only Congress can approve or block new aid packages. If Democrats and even a handful of hawkish Republicans (of whom there are plenty) teamed up, Trump’s plans to bring pressure to bear on Kiev could be frustrated. The president does have veto power over Congressional funding, which would require a two-thirds majority to overcome -something unlikely in a Congress now filled with more MAGA Republicans than ever.

After Trump’s election in 2016, elements of the deep state, ranging from the intelligence community and State Department to top officials like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton successfully sabotaged his agenda, including Trump’s desire to improve relations with Russia.

In his first term, Trump 1.0 ended up not only ramping up anti-Russian sanctions and joined the diplomatic expulsion wars, but approved arms aid for Ukraine in 2017.

The deep state has its own ideas about the ‘right’ trajectory for US foreign policy.

In 2020, Trump Syria envoy Jim Jeffrey offered interesting insights into how the Washington apparatus works, boasting about how he and his staff obfuscated and covered up the true size of the US military footprint in Syria, and straight up ignored the president’s demands to withdraw troops.